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Another Obamacare fail: No Spanish language website (Your letters)

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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Oct. 30. Sebelius apologized for the frustration that millions of Americans experienced while shopping for insurance on the HealthCare.gov website.
(The New York Times)

I am a Republican who would have supported a well-designed single payer system. But what we have now is a typical camel: a horse designed by committee. As a self-employed person, I have plenty to say on that subject, but that's not the point of this letter.

Shamefully, the website exemplifies the systemic lack of leadership which created this nightmare during passage of the plan and failure of anyone to face up to its obvious "shortcomings." Republicans who legitimately pointed out the obvious were ignored and ridiculed.

But there is one aspect of this nightmare on which we should all agree:

A truly serious failure rarely mentioned is the delay in launching the Spanish language website, which is apparently incomplete (it must be pretty bad). When is that going to be rolled out? After the deadline for signups?

Since we have encouraged our (legal as well as illegal) Hispanic population to not learn English in many locales and schools, this seems exceptionally cruel, not to mention hypocritical. Failure to launch this portion of the program will no doubt have a devastating impact on some people who may need ACA the most.

It is one more clear illustration of why all immigrants should be forced and helped to learn our language. When they need it the most, we failed to include those who don't speak English in the first two months of this program.

I read a statistic this morning that 38 percent of those who need Obamacare don't even know it exists. When it comes to those who only speak Spanish, one can certainly understand. These people are being penalized for a cruel and patronizing practice of those who are currently pushing Obamacare on the rest of us, many of whom are being forced to pay far more for far less coverage and far fewer options.